


Fresh Poison

by JumanjiiCostco



Series: From the Cherry Tree [2]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: F/F, F/M, angst and talk of love, i should really just accept that i only write internal monologues, i'm in deep shit here, inspired by the most recent epilogue, it's all angst guys, what the fuck are pieces with plot?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 06:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JumanjiiCostco/pseuds/JumanjiiCostco
Summary: A life already complicated takes a turn for the worst. And when Love is the problem, can it also be the solution?(In which I use fic as a place to process Epilogues)





	Fresh Poison

**Author's Note:**

> Oooooh man what an epilogue, huh? Jesus. So much to think about. 
> 
> ANYWAY. If you're looking to find me on any other social medias, you can find me on all of them @JumanjiiCostco for further chaos and angst.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Love doesn’t fix you. It doesn’t make you a better person or deserving of what someone else sacrifices. Love doesn’t mean you’re always kind or noble. And it certainly, by no means, makes you perfect. And standing between them, two sides of a war that has now found roost in her heart, Eva is reminded again.  _ Love doesn’t fix you _ . 

They’re swathed in darkness, the both of them, of their own creation, of someone else’s. They’re both drowning in it, too stubborn to find help when it’s reaching out for them, too. It never once occurred to her that she might have a type--but she does. 

Stubborn, self-condemning assholes. 

_ You should get better taste.  _ For once, the Beast is right, even if it sounds like it shouldn’t be.  _ Love someone who won’t put us in danger all the time. Or don’t love anyone at all.  _

Stubborn, self-condemning assholes with smart mouths, at that. Firing verbal missiles at each other like the pseudo-Cold War is over. Like she’s not standing between them, half-caught in the crossfire. 

They are a burning, snarling, chained-and-armed reminder that her old life and her new one don’t fit together. That love doesn’t fix you. That being loved doesn’t make you worthy of that love. And that seeing a light in someone else doesn’t mean it can’t be snuffed out. 

(Katya used to burn brighter than them all. Now, she’s but an ember left burning in the hearth. Muted. There’s potential to start a fire, to burn everything to the ground, but to rekindle her would take so much time.)

And though love doesn’t fix you, it doesn’t take leave easily, either. It’s a parasite, your soul as its host, latching onto you and never letting go, if it can help it. In one hand, an old love, in the other, a new. Neither is stronger. Neither is better. Neither is cleaner or more helpful. One is perhaps more reliable, more there in the moment, but even he can’t keep her from watching Katya. 

They both lie. 

She so distinctly has a type--tightly wound, stubborn, self-condemning assholes with a propensity for getting themselves in trouble. For making big, uncalculated mistakes. For running with their heart and not their head. 

What a terrifying thing it is to love and be loved, if monsters are even capable. What a mess it makes of our minds and hearts, shattering the things we know about ourselves so we can make them something else. 

Love doesn’t protect her from the shrapnel that comes when two missiles meet. Love doesn’t spare her the anxiety of the moment when Katya scribbles a number in her book. Love doesn’t take the sky from her shoulders, lift it high like Atlas, and give her just a moment’s reprieve from her own personal horror show. 

A life already complicated takes a turn for the worst. And when Love is the problem, can it also be the solution? 


End file.
